Brazil’s new Supreme Court chief justice takes office

Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso took over the rotating position of chief justice on Thursday. In his speech, he supported the court’s work, arguing that “it is not about activism, but rather about institutional design.” Chief Justice Barroso said that Brazil’s Constitution is unusually large compared to other countries and includes a lot of […]

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Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso took over the rotating position of chief justice on Thursday. In his speech, he supported the court’s work, arguing that “it is not about activism, but rather about institutional design.”

Chief Justice Barroso said that Brazil’s Constitution is unusually large compared to other countries and includes a lot of subjects. “Including an issue in the Constitution is largely to remove it from politics and bring it into law.” Hence, he said, “a court’s virtue can never be measured by polls.”

Luís Roberto Barroso is taking over days after the far-right opposition announced several measures to counter the Supreme Court’s agenda, most notably on issues such as abortion, drugs, same-sex marriage, and indigenous land rights. Far-right lawmakers often accuse the court of “judicial activism” and of “usurping” or interfering with what they understand should be left up to Congress.

In Brazil, the Supreme Court’s chief justices serve two-year terms. It is tradition — though not technically law — to always choose the most senior justice who has not yet served as the 11-member court’s president. Justice Edson Fachin took over today as the court’s deputy chief and will become chief justice in 2025.

Chief Justice Barroso was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2013 by then-President Dilma Rousseff, after serving as a prosecutor in his home state of Rio de Janeiro and later as an attorney. As a lawyer, he argued pro bono in landmark cases such as the 2011 ruling that recognized same-sex unions as having the same rights as heterosexual ones.

Chief Justice Barroso also served as chief of the Superior Electoral Court from 2020 to 2022. As The Brazilian Report revealed, in this position, he led an effort to acquire semiconductors for voting machines at the height of the global chip crisis — with the help of current and retired U.S. officials. He also publicly opposed efforts by the Jair Bolsonaro administration to reinstate printed ballot receipts, a key part of the far-right’s campaign to try to discredit Brazil’s electoral system.

Mr. Barroso holds a Ph.D. in public law from his alma mater, the State University of Rio de Janeiro, where he is still a professor. He’s an active social media user and famously tweets his weekend recommendations every Friday — always a book, a poem, and a song, often with strong underlying connotations to current events.

Unlike his predecessor, the discreet Justice Rosa Weber, who is leaving the court after hitting the mandatory retirement age of 75, Justice Barroso is not shy about giving interviews, with one of his first coming three months after he joined the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Barroso is known for his loose tongue. In 2018, during a live televised Supreme Court session, he told Justice Gilmar Mendes that he was a “horrible person, a mixture of evil and backwardness, with pinches of psychopathy.” Late last year, he told a supporter of former President Jair Bolsonaro who heckled him on the street: “You lost, dummy” — in a reference to the 2022 election.

Like all of his colleagues nominated by Ms. Rousseff, Chief Justice Barroso sided with the tight 6-5 majority that rejected an appeal by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2018, paving the way for his arrest on corruption charges. 

Mr. Barroso later also joined the 8-3 majority that quashed all of Lula’s convictions in 2021, on the understanding that the 13th Court of Curitiba did not have jurisdiction to try the case and that former judge Sergio Moro was biased in his rulings of the Car Wash trials.

As usual at Brazil’s Supreme Court, Mr. Barroso took over the position of Chief Justice in a lavish televised ceremony, including guests arriving on a red carpet. Maria Bethânia, a popular singer and songwriter, sang the national anthem.

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